Year 1960 - Part 13: Al-Sarraj Becomes Chairman of the Executive Council in a Major Government Reshuffle

Wednesday, 7 September

In the ongoing propaganda war Jordan has been waging against the Republic, this is the news Jordanian radio broadcast at three in the afternoon today:

"Mr. AbdulWahab Homad, Minister of the Treasury, has submitted his resignation from the cabinet, but was forced to withdraw it after being threatened with arrest should he insist upon it."

The cause of this fabricated news, in its entirety, was likely my own absence from the ministry in Hammana, for a week I spent there resting.

This week off was my own right. It is hardly fair that every ordinary employee should enjoy a month's vacation each year, while a minister goes on working like a machine, without pause, when even a machine sometimes stops, to receive its own due of oil and maintenance.

Rumor-mongers invented reasons of their own for this "resignation."

One rumor said I had quarreled with al-Sarraj over items in the Interior Ministry's own budget. Another said, no, it was over a disagreement with the military minister, Akram Deiri.

Radio London picked up this news and broadcast it several times.

Why this "Arab" eagerness to see the Union dead, while it remains still a mere infant?

Only yesterday, General de Gaulle spoke at his third press conference, calling on Europe to fulfill its own duty toward itself, and pressing yesterday's own enemies, France, Germany, and Italy, to hold referendums in their own countries to form a political, military, and economic union among themselves, so that they might stand up to "the communist threat."

But those reading between the lines understood this call to mean that de Gaulle was calling for a European union capable of protecting its own economic interests between two ravenous giants, the Soviet Union and the United States.

De Gaulle's own dislike of the latter, and of England, is well known, for their leaders, Churchill and Roosevelt, never treated him with real respect during the Second World War, after he took refuge in England, and used to call him "Joan of Arc," in mockery and derision of him.

Friday, 16 September

The Minister of Presidential Affairs telephoned me from Cairo, and asked me to travel to Kafr Takharim to offer condolences to Mr. Fakhir al-Kayali, central Minister of State, on the President's own behalf.

This is a gracious habit of the President's, sharing in his ministers' own joys and sorrows, accepting their invitations and extending his own to them, keeping the bonds between him and them alive beyond the bounds of official work.

It happened to me more than once that I requested an urgent appointment over some matter of government business, and he would always grant it, receiving me at the earliest time his own official commitments allowed.

I made my way to my colleague al-Kayali's own town, and offered him my condolences, and enjoyed a delicious lunch at his own table, after an exhausting journey.

From there I made my way to Aleppo, to see my mother.

I confess I was never in complete harmony with Mr. Fakhir. This mutual coolness may well be an inheritance passed down to us both from the remnants of party rivalry in "the old days." He belonged to the party that took on the mantle of the National Bloc and later became the "National Party," though it had by then lost much of the Bloc's own fragrant reputation, while I belonged to the People's Party, which held a moderate position in both politics and economics.

When the National Party itself later tore apart, two of its own senior figures, Sabri al-Asali and Fakhir al-Kayali, chose to march in the procession led by Akram al-Hourani, under the banner of the National Front, a grouping resting on no clear ideological basis at all, directed instead by politicized officers of hardline leftist leanings.

For this reason, I was never entirely convinced by the two men's own "leftism," nor by that of Khalid al-Azm, Khalid Bakdash, the tribal chieftains, and Mamoun al-Kuzbari alongside them.

Tuesday, 20 September: Kahhaleh as Vice President of the Republic, al-Sarraj as Chairman of the Executive Council

President Abdel Nasser issued Decision No. 1521, dated 20 September 1960, radically restructuring the government apparatus.

The engineer Nour al-Din Kahhaleh became Vice President of the Republic[1] and central Minister of Planning, moving his own base to Cairo and giving up his chairmanship of the Executive Council.

This chairmanship was entrusted instead to Abdul Hamid al-Sarraj, Minister of Interior in the Syrian region and Secretary-General of the National Union, meaning he became head of the executive authority in Syria and head of the legislative authority as well, one drawn from the branches of the National Union, the state's own sole party.

In the Southern Region, Kamal El-Din Hussein, previously Minister of Education, became chairman of the Executive Council.

What I know of Kamal El-Din Hussein is that he was one of the leaders of Egypt's 1952 revolution, a pillar of the new regime, and is considered very close to the hardline religious current.

When he used to tour the Syrian provinces during the summer months, whenever Ramadan happened to fall within them, he kept his own fast throughout.

I read of him, in the memoirs of Khaled Mohieddine, the hardline leftist pillar of that same revolution, "Now I Speak," the following passage:[2]

"As for Kamal El-Din Hussein, he is a picture of devotion to the homeland and to Islam, though his own Islam is not extremist, and he rejects the claims of the political Islamist groups, while possessing great effectiveness in his own work."

In this same reshuffle, Fakhir al-Kayali became central Minister of Justice, Muhammad al-Alem became central Minister of Communications, and Thabet al-Aris (one of our own Christian brothers from Aleppo) became central Minister of Culture and National Guidance (in Cairo) as well as Minister of Culture and National Guidance in the Northern Region, meaning his own authority now covered, in theory, the whole United Arab Republic, while in practice he ran the affairs of the Syrian region's own ministry.

I first met Thabet al-Aris in Paris in 1938, where he had arrived before me to study French literature. He was a brilliant student in his own studies, and lived a comfortable life there.

He took no interest, however, in the political questions that occupied our own minds and a good part of our own time, though he did have a clear leftist leaning of his own.

He finished his studies before the fires of the Second World War broke out, and returned home at just the right moment, while we ourselves remained at the mercy of an uncertain, shifting fate.

He had a real taste for fine literature, and it delighted him whenever we shared in his own pleasure as he recited a poem by Paul Valéry or Stéphane Mallarmé.

I often heard him repeat this line:

"It rains upon my heart,

as it rains upon the town."

Even though he knew full well I never found in it the genius he himself so loved.

Because of this refined literary taste of his, his own work at his ministry was the work of a discerning man of letters, more than that of a decisive administrator.

The other Syrian minister was Jaddou Ezzedine, who had held the post of "Minister of State for Presidential Affairs," and now became Minister of Public Works in the Northern Region.

Jaddou, one of the Syrian army's politicized officers, together with al-Hunaidi and Taama, formed the trio that stood opposed to the Baathist officers, standing in their way so that they would not gain sole control of the armed forces, and, through it, seize civilian authority directly.

This was a real state of affairs, one the country suffered from a great deal.

The President did well to move them into whatever civilian post, ministerial or ambassadorial, so long as it stripped the weapons from their own hands.

I was glad to remain in Damascus, at the head of the Ministry of the Treasury, for I prefer to be at home, beside my own children. Besides, the London and Amman broadcasts kept insisting on the news of my own "resignation," claiming I had submitted it because of a dispute between myself and the President, who supposedly wanted to force me to put 63 million Syrian lira of new paper currency into circulation, without backing.

This was news entirely devoid of any truth.

Under the regulations of the Public Debt Fund, a department under the Ministry of the Treasury, the minister cannot put a single banknote into circulation except by a law ratified by the National Assembly, or, when it is not in session, by the President of the Republic. The figures for the banknotes must be published in the daily press.

Thursday, 22 September: The President's Trip to America

Today, President Abdel Nasser sets off for New York, to attend the sessions of the United Nations General Assembly as head of the United Arab Republic's delegation.

He issued Decision No. 1522, delegating his deputy, Abdel Latif Boghdadi, "to carry out the duties of the presidency during the President's absence to attend the UN session."

Boghdadi was a brave fighter pilot, holding the rank of "wing commander."

He was among the very first officers who formed the nucleus of the "Free Officers," and was present at the meeting held at half past two in the afternoon on 22 July 1952, at which "zero hour" for the revolution that same night was set.

Anwar Sadat did not attend that session.

The password was "Nasr" (Victory).

I quote here a passage from the book of Khaled Mohieddine, still, to this day, a member of the Egyptian National Assembly, "Now I Speak," giving his own view of Boghdadi:

"As for Abdel Latif Boghdadi, he possesses an orderly political mind and a clear vision, and was, from the very start, opposed to the return of parliamentary life. He is a man of real self-assurance, and had objected to authorizing Abdel Nasser to issue decisions in the Revolutionary Council's own name. He resigned from the chairmanship of the National Assembly, because Abdel Nasser wished to impose a view contrary to his own, on the matter of appointing certain National Assembly members to the Liberation Governorate."

I came to know Boghdadi closely, especially once Abdel Nasser sent him to Damascus to resolve the region's own troubled affairs. I found him sharp-minded, quick to understand, gracious in his own dealings and conversation, and quick to see that people's rights were honored. He used to sit at the Council of Ministers' own sessions to the President's right, yet never once asked to speak.

I recall that when I brought him the matter of Wahbi al-Hariri, he was as positive as anyone could possibly be, only to leave us for Cairo unexpectedly soon after. For this reason, this great industrialist was never given his own due, and sank into debt, dying, may God have mercy on him, in dire financial straits.

I can find no reason for the Minister of Agrarian Reform's own unjust treatment of Wahbi al-Hariri, other than the class hatred he harbored for "the capitalists."

This is a hatred no responsible minister has any right to let poison his own judgment, when he takes up his pen to decide people's own affairs, nor any right to carry with him into his own official office in the first place.

The President had occasion, during his own stay in New York, to meet with the heads of state gathered there.

He was at odds with most of them.

Among the Arabs, he was at odds with the Saudis, resentful as they were of the Union.

At odds with the King of Jordan, who fights this Union tooth and claw.

At odds with Chamoun, President of the Republic of Lebanon, who had thrown himself into the arms of American intelligence, for fear, as he put it, "that the fortunes of the Christians might take a turn for the worse."

At odds with "Qasim of Iraq," who persecuted every Arab nationalist, subjecting them to death and humiliation by sending them before the notoriously disreputable Mahdawi court.

Bourguiba, for his part, disowned his own Arab identity in some of his press interviews with European journalists, going so far as to tell one of them, when she asked him about his own "Arabness":

"Look at the color of my eyes, and see what Arab there is in their color."

Meaning that his own blue eyes were like those of Europeans.

To spite the Tunisian president, Abdel Nasser gave refuge to Salah ben Youssef, his own bitter enemy, and ordered his press statements broadcast, statements that very nearly drove the "Supreme Fighter" to the brink of madness.

There may have been no friend to the Republic among the Arabs at all, save Ibrahim Abboud, who carried out a successful coup in Sudan in November 1958. Abdel Nasser rewarded him by raising the Wadi Halfa compensation from ten million pounds to fifteen million, and agreeing to raise Sudan's own share of the Nile waters from five billion cubic meters to twenty-four billion a year, making it possible to begin building the High Dam.

Is there not, in all this feverish hostility, something that only raises Abdel Nasser's own standing, standing as he did like a mountain against the enemies of the first union in modern Arab history, precisely because they feared its flames might spread to the roofs of their own homes?

Abdel Nasser was a stubborn enemy of Western colonialism, embodied in the British fleet in the Arabian Gulf and the French army encamped in Algeria, and so found himself at odds with these two powers as well. The Suez War remained a recent and painful memory for him, and his own support for Algerian independence remained a knife sharpened against France's own throat. He even traded insults with Khrushchev, head of a friendly state, over the communists' own conduct, both within the Republic and outside it.

Despite this ring the West was tightening around the Republic's own neck, Abdel Nasser found, at the United Nations podium, an occasion to lay out his own national and international philosophy before the nations of the world.

In its own corridors, he met with American President Eisenhower, met privately with the hostile British Prime Minister Mr. Macmillan, and exchanged reproaches with Khrushchev, reproach being the very soap that cleanses hearts, and renewed his own bond of friendship with the companions he had made since the Bandung Conference of 1955: Sukarno (of Indonesia), Tito (of Yugoslavia), Nehru (of India), and Nkrumah (President of Ghana in Africa), these being the leaders of the non-aligned bloc.

I was told that Abdel Nasser held no real affection or respect for Ahmed Sukarno, for he had once asked Mahmoud Fawzi, the Republic's Foreign Minister, to bring him a girl to share his bed, while he was in Egypt.

This story was recounted by Mr. Anthony Nutting.[3]

Nor is this shameful story a strange one for Sukarno at all, for our ambassador in Portugal, my own brother Dr. As'ad Homad, told me that Sukarno visited Portugal in 1960 with an enormous entourage, and that he and his own retinue left the very worst impression there of what Muslim rulers have become in the present age, their own state exactly as the poet once said:

"Whenever I lodged in the house of a people,

I broke my own oath in disgrace, and left them shame behind me."

It is best we not dwell further on the details.

At this particular session of the United Nations, the Soviet leader's name shone brightest of all, his own doings carried by every radio station and newspaper in the world, eclipsing the political events themselves, for he took off his own shoe in the assembly hall, in full view of the delegations of every nation on earth, and began pounding it on the table, shouting as though seized by some fit of madness. In doing so, he exposed his own country's reputation to the scorn of the whole world.

Historians say this uncouth act ended Khrushchev's own political career at home, and he was later removed from the secretaryship of the ruling Communist Party's Central Committee.

I had come to know this leader personally, during a visit of mine to Moscow in 1955 with a Syrian parliamentary delegation.

At the head of government in the Soviet Union, at that time, stood Malenkov.

Power later passed to Khrushchev.

The Arab world will always remember him for his own generous stand, when he issued his famous warning to Britain and France during their aggression against Egypt in 1956, igniting the Suez War, in which Abdel Nasser achieved a victory over them by every conventional measure.

Thursday, 1 December

An agreement was then reached between myself (Minister of the Treasury) and the Minister of Municipal and Rural Affairs in the Northern Region, setting this ministry's own budget for 1960-1961 at ten million lira, and Republican Decision No. 2115, dated 1 December 1960, was issued approving this agreement, as financial procedure requires.

This sum will meet the region's own needs, from drinking-water projects for a large number of thirsty villages to the construction of a number of rest stops, which the minister concerned says the country badly needs, whether as rest stations along its own travel routes, or to encourage tourism and draw foreigners and citizens alike to these regions.

The budget for the capital, Damascus, for 1960-1961, was also ratified, reaching a total of 40,748,973 Syrian lira.

State Prizes for Intellectual Achievement

Law No. 293 of 1960 (dated 1 December 1960) was issued, establishing incentive prizes for scholars and men of letters.

Article 1 of this law provided for the establishment of 28 prizes, to be called:

"State Prizes for the Encouragement of Science, the Arts, Literature, and the Social Sciences." Article 2 provided for the establishment of merit prizes for citizens of the United Arab Republic, distributed as follows:

Two prizes for the sciences

One prize for the social sciences

One prize for literature

One prize for the fine arts

This law came at a time when the country needed it most, for man had reached the moon by now, and brought back some of its own stones, while we remained in a truly pitiable state, coup following coup, conspiracy following conspiracy, rebellion following rebellion.

This law will not, of course, pull us out of the pit of our own backwardness, but it is a first step on the right path.

---

Endnotes:

[1] Kahhaleh had, in fact, already become Vice President on 18 July 1960, by Decision No. 1338.

[2] Printed by the Ahram Foundation, Cairo, 1992, p. 334.

[3] In his book "Nasser," translated by Shaker Ibrahim Said, Dar wa Maktabat al-Hilal, Beirut, first edition, 1985.