In Cairo's newspapers, the little notices began appearing with tragic frequency —obituaries of young Egyptian officers killed in action. Where was the fighting? The papers did not say, but the bloody front was certainly in Yemen, where President Gamal Abdel Nasser had poured in some 12,000 troops to support the rebels who overthrew Imam Mohamed el Badr three months ago.
The expedition was costing Nasser heavily in money ($1,000,000 a day) as well as in blood. Only last month, Yemen's self-proclaimed President, Abdullah Sallal, the former commander of the palace guard who turned against the Imam, seemed to have the...