Before These Memoirs - Part 23: The Secret Recording That Confirmed Mati al-Samman Ordered the Car Bombing

Thursday the 5th

The military investigating judge summoned me today to take my own testimony on the car incident. I told him: I cannot pin the blame on any one particular person, but this incident took place right after we submitted a political memorandum to the President of the Republic, and had it published in the newspapers.

This military judge, whose name was Zuhair al-Adili, told me, in the quiet of his own office, that he had investigated every accusation directed at Abdel Hamid al-Sarraj, and found every one of them baseless, issuing rulings barring any trial over them.

Except for one small matter, that al-Sarraj had kept the file of an intelligence officer named Abdo Hakim, which was of no real importance, since the file still existed, and the officer in question could still be pursued over whatever accusation his own file contained.

He did not tell me what this accusation was, but I believe I know it, since the governor of Homs, Mustafa Ram Hamdani, had once investigated its victim in my own office, during the union. My house had by then begun filling up with "callers."

Among those who visited me were Mr. Ahmad Qanbar and Adel Kikhya. Mr. Qanbar sat in silence, offering neither condolence nor condemnation, as though he had come merely "to return a courtesy," telling me only that the incident had not happened during his own time in office.

The head of Aleppo's bar association, Mr. Abdel Ghafour al-Mosuti, sent a telegram to the Prime Minister protesting in the bar association's own name, and gave me a copy of it.

I showed him a telegram from one of Aleppo's own lawyers, protesting the head of the association's own telegram, "for dragging the bar association into a deviant political current," and this man said things about it not even the most zealous jurist ever said against wine itself.

General al-Jarrah had once arrested this very lawyer, during the union, for reasons he explained to me, none of which had any direct connection to politics. His family came to me asking for my own mediation, and I did in fact ask Interior Minister al-Sarraj to release him, so that he not be turned into "a martyr," which he did at once. But he also told me of this man's own "conduct," the kind that would make any decent soul recoil.

Two lawyers, Mr. Aref Jazmati and Mr. Zafer Khairallah, visited me and described the general situation in Aleppo, assuring me that the great majority of the people there supported us. To prove their own point, they told me they had discussed with our own Front's members organizing a welcoming procession for me, involving more than fifteen hundred cars, capable of defying the government and standing up to it should the need arise.

They also proposed that I accept a "luxury" car, funded by subscription from as many people of Aleppo as possible, especially the unionist women, as a resounding answer to the government's own base conduct.

But I declined to accept any car whatsoever, from any quarter, since we had no wish to enter into open conflict with the government or the secessionist officers, wanting instead a union reached by agreement, not one imposed by force and coercion.

They told me of the welcoming procession organized for Dr. Maarouf al-Dawalibi, and how the unionists had struggled to persuade the fuel-cart vendors to stop blocking his own path with their carts, so as to spare the country pointless side skirmishes that would ultimately serve no purpose.

I ask myself: what exactly is our friend trying to achieve in Aleppo? It seems he wishes to defy the President who never restored him to the presidency, and the power centers that stood against him.

Today as well, the intelligence officer Colonel Burhan Boulos summoned me to the directorate's headquarters, near the French embassy. Major Suhail Sharqiya was with him, and they proposed that a number of intelligence agents guard me, which I declined, since I did not feel I needed any guard at all. Sharqiya said he had been tasked with protecting my own life from any possible attack, but I assured him I felt no dread of any such thing, telling them both frankly that I had "family" quite capable of carrying out this task, should the need ever arise.

But they insisted they had been ordered to carry out this very duty.

We agreed instead that I would choose an observer of my own, whose salary intelligence would pay, and I asked for time to choose him. Afterward, I sat alone with Major Suhail, one of my own former law students. In his office, he played me a recorded tape of a conversation between himself and Mati' al-Samman, from which I understood that al-Samman himself had organized the bombing of my car, and that Major Sharqiya's own men had caught some of those responsible, while General al-Samman kept pressing for their release. He asked me, though, not to speak of this matter now, given the sensitivity of his own position, and I did not speak of it until a third of a century later.

As I took my leave to go, they brought me a black Mercedes, its windows curtained to shield whoever sat inside from the eyes of passersby. I found this "honor" rather strange, and they told me they feared some attack might be made on me, and were therefore obliged to deliver me home this way. I got in, and arrived home "safely."

But what would happen to us after that?

I took this whole tasteless "performance" as nothing more than a form of "wearing down the nerves." Even so, this "meeting" gave us the occasion to discuss the future of the current situation, and it seemed clear to me that neither of them was particularly enthusiastic about it.

In the midst of this suffocating atmosphere, I went to the Algerian mission, to congratulate my friend Mohamed al-Ghosairy on Algeria's independence, and asked him to convey my own heartfelt congratulations to Mr. Youssef Ben Khedda, and to his deputy Ahmed Ben Bella, whom I had met at a dinner held at Qubba Palace in Cairo, before the union. Ahmed Ben Bella had visited us in Damascus in 1955, seeking financial aid or weapons Syria might send to Algeria.

The government met these legitimate demands with great pleasure.

Monday, 9 July

The Communist lawyer Taher Khayyat joined the ranks of those hurling abuse.

Al-Ayyam published an eight-column article of his, taking up its entire front page, aimed personally at me with his own venom.

It seems to me the reason for this campaign against me was the dismissal of his own brother, who had been a senior official in Aleppo's customs administration, among those dismissed during the union, once President Gamal began attacking President Khrushchev and the Soviet Union. The dismissal of Communists was handled through the Ministry of Interior, on its own direct recommendation to President Abdel Nasser.

Purging Communists was, at the time, considered part of the higher policy that belonged to the President alone. In all honesty, I did not even learn of this man's own dismissal until the President's decision reached me already bearing this measure. I bear witness that he was not a poor or corrupt official, and perhaps not the most productive one either, but in my own view he did not deserve dismissal.

I would never have proposed his dismissal myself.

But security policy fell directly under the President's own authority, assisted in it by the Minister of Interior, which is why the dismissal of Communists never passed through the Council of Ministers for its own opinion or approval. Khayyat considered me responsible regardless, and seized the opportunity of the campaign against us to write this unjust article.

I found this "masterpiece" of an article among my own papers, along with my own reply to it, which Al-Ayyam published, "in keeping with press freedom." Here is a summary of it:

1. The article's author accused me of having my own wife's clothes tailored by a Lebanese dressmaker.

I denied this "accusation," which, even if true, would be a purely personal matter. Raising it at all betrays a real lack of taste and manners.

Never before had women been dragged into a political dispute of this kind. But the moral standard had sunk to the point of outright vulgarity, whether in the newspaper's own owner or in the article's author.

2. The article's author accused me of "granting a loan to an Aleppan company from the state treasury," from which a lawyer friend of mine profited through a commission he received for interceding with me. I asked the Ministry of Finance to investigate the matter, and it handed me a document dated 8 July 1962, confirming that this loan had in fact been granted by a different Minister of Finance entirely, not by me.

As for the remaining eight columns, they were nothing but "obscenities" not worth dwelling on, among them "signs of newfound wealth" that had supposedly appeared in me. My answer to this accusation (supposing it were even true) was that I drew both a ministerial salary and a university professor's salary (holding, as I did, the highest academic rank), on top of whatever income my own published works brought me, and it was not little.

Wednesday the 10th

I genuinely see no reasonable cause to justify the Damascus press's continued attacks on us. In today's issue of the newspaper Sawt al-Arab, owned by its well-known illiterate proprietor, we "Nasserists" stand explicitly accused of staging the attacks on ourselves.

This is what this "cultured" journalist has discovered. Among what he said, God forgive his mouth: "The Nasserist scheme is being uncovered, piece by piece."

On the day the first attack fell on Ratib al-Husami, and the second on AbdulWahab Homad, both among the most prominent members of the well-known Nasserist Five-Man Company, no one at first believed the Nasserists could have carried out the attacks on themselves.

But events soon came to confirm this very theory.

We said, at the time, that the attack had been staged by paid Nasserist elements, to serve as the spark for the subversive scheme these same elements are preparing, to set the fires of sedition ablaze across the country. Today, further evidence has come to support and confirm this.

It is the government's duty, and the duty of the security authorities and the watchful eye, to deal with this matter firmly, striking with an iron fist against every treacherous and criminal element, without pity or mercy. Show them no mercy, for they will show this country none.

By chance, I happened to meet this newspaper's own owner in the street, and asked him the reason for this "malice." He told me quite frankly: you cut off our own livelihoods during the union, and left us not a drop of water to wet our own throats.

He was referring to the cutting off of holiday bonuses to journalists, and to my own membership on the three-man committee (al-Sarraj, Riad al-Maleki, and myself) charged with weeding out these yellow rags, newspapers in name only. As for the real truth about most of them, God alone, and Abdel Hamid al-Sarraj, know it well.

In this suffocating atmosphere, the workers' unions in Aleppo and Damascus began mobilizing, threatening to declare a strike unless the government agreed to two principles:

First, reinstating the dismissed workers.

Second, halting arbitrary dismissals.

The government moved quickly to dissolve the council of the General Federation of Workers' Unions.

The workers answered this measure by declaring a general strike across the country.

Widespread demonstrations broke out, met by the government with real brutality, and the official communiqué reported that two men had fallen, drenched in their own blood.

The sound of explosions was heard in Aleppo, Damascus, Homs, and Daraa.

Those overseeing security lost their own minds entirely, while government members purified themselves with vinegar and milk. The newspapers returned once more to affirm that the investigation had confirmed my own car was blown up with ten kilograms of dynamite, "and that whoever held its keys was not far removed from this bombing."

Mr. Munir al-Rayyes, owner of the newspaper Barada and a well-known freedom fighter who had taken part in the 1925 Syrian Revolt alongside the commander Fawzi al-Qawuqji, visited me at night, along with the lawyer Zaki al-Rikabi, one of our own unionist brothers, and both informed me of the army commander's own wish to meet with me, to discuss the general situation.

But we found it impossible to know this senior officer's own true leanings, since he would issue a statement pointing one way, only to come out two days later with an entirely contrary one.

I therefore asked them both to "stall our answer" until we understood what he actually wanted from us, especially since he held no real control over the secessionist officers in any case.

We continue, meanwhile, to endure the troubles caused by Prime Minister al-Azma's own constant reversals, and to face a continuous campaign fed by Mati' al-Samman, commander of the internal security forces.

Wednesday the 11th

We "woke up" today to certain newspapers publishing, in bold red and black headlines, news of the confiscation of 86,000 pounds from eight people in Syria, among them AbdulWahab Homad and Ratib al-Husami, the sum said to have been sent from Egypt. The investigation, they said, was still ongoing.

I telephoned the Prime Minister, but he left me no room to speak, launching straight into his own words: "Please, don't say anything. I know everything already. The situation is unbearable. I promise you I'll take every appropriate measure." He spoke like a waterfall, and yet I managed to seize a brief gap in his own torrent of words to tell him:

She accused me of her own affliction, then slipped quietly away.

Weren't you, Dr. Bashir, the very one who pressed us so hard to send that telegram of support? And yet he took no action at all, being simply incapable of doing so.

Besides, he was a man of a direction we could never quite make out, so much so that our own friends came to call him "the charming clown."

I gathered three newspapers and went out to the Republican Palace, to see "the good old man" myself. I laid before him the pages, brimming with venom and obscenity.

He listened to me, as though in a state of bewilderment. He began his answer by asking after my own family and their circumstances. I thanked God for them, and asked in turn after Umm Sa'd and her own children. We then turned to the matter of the car bombing, and he said the investigation would uncover every hidden circumstance, and identify whoever was responsible, whoever they might be.

I reminded him that my car was new, and that I did not think he could seriously suspect I had blown it up myself, just to get a new one from Abdel Nasser. It was summer, and the heat was severe, and my own family had begun to feel "suffocated," since the car used to take us to one of the parks, where the children could enjoy some measure of rest. It had become difficult for me to take them out on the road at all, for fear of some deranged attack on myself or on them, since there was neither order nor law left in the country.

He reassured me, God preserve him, and tried to ease my own mind, saying: are you really concerned with what the newspapers say? Don't you know them, and their own owners, and where their funding comes from?

And what, Your Excellency, about the newspaper headlines, in red and black ink, claiming security men confiscated 86,000 pounds from infiltrators, who confessed it was meant for Nasserists, myself and al-Husami among them? He said: I've confirmed for myself that this news is false, from beginning to end, and this is exactly what both the intelligence service and military intelligence have confirmed to me. I asked him, then what is your own view? He said: "Gum chewing on gum chewing," meaning empty talk not worth minding. And what are you doing about these slanderers? He then cursed press freedom, and those who had decided to allow these papers to be published in the first place, meaning the Prime Minister. He turned to me and asked: are you in favor of press freedom? I said: not a press like this one, by God, no.

But tell me, he said: did the union's own press ever harm you? I answered: I swear before God, it never touched us with any harm. But what am I to do?

He let out a long sigh, and said: regrettably, it has become forbidden for a man even to utter the word union with his own mouth. I asked him his own impression of the memorandum we had submitted to him some days before, in which we told him we were supporters of federation, and that if he moved to achieve it, we stood with him. He said: honestly, it was a polite, carefully studied memorandum, well thought through.

I went back a little further in our own conversation, and told him: Bashir al-Azma met with us, at his own request, three separate times, appealing to us to support him with a telegram against the secessionists, assuring us that the government was moving irreversibly down the path of union. We asked him, at the time, whether the President of the Republic shared his own view, and he said yes. I asked the President himself: do you truly agree? He said: absolutely. I asked him: and the army, does it agree as well? He said: the majority of it does, though not unanimously. The President then asked: why doesn't the Prime Minister protect you himself? I found this question strange, and told him: aren't you both part of the very same state, or are you each simply running your own separate department, answerable for it and it alone? He asked me again: and what would you do, in my place? I told him: at the very least, invoke the emergency powers law. He said: I'm afraid al-Azma might resign over it. I said: then let him resign. If he resigns, you regain your own freedom of action, and can then move genuinely toward union. And if the secessionist officers rise up against you over it, you can tell the people the truth, and go home, with your own head held high and your own honor intact.

I reminded him of the foul atmosphere hanging over the country, and told him people feared an imminent explosion. At this, he accused al-Husami of carrying out secret activity that could threaten security, which I denied outright, telling him: if we were men chasing material gain, I myself would have found, under your own government, the finest opportunities, whether in the private sector or in state office. He said: God knows that's true.

We walked together until he climbed into his own luxurious car, a guard vehicle trailing behind him, and I set off on foot toward the main street, under the scorching sun, waiting for a taxi to take me home.

I remembered "the old days," when Dr. al-Qudsi used to stay at the Orient Palace Hotel and call me by telephone whenever some matter concerned him, and I would go to him, show him every courtesy, and drive him in my own car wherever he wished to go. Glory be to the One who changes all things.